S a n d a l w o o d
by belladonnanroses
Summary: Covers the events after 'Entropy' from Willow's perspective, based mostly on spoilers and speculation. Lyrics are by Lisa Loeb from the song 'Sandalwood'.


'She can't tell me that, all of the love songs have been written   
  
Cause she's never been in love with you before'   
  
What she remembers is the way they made love only hours before.   
  
She remembers her lover's golden hair spread out on the pillows and the white sheets. She remembers the sheen of sweat making their skin glow in the candlelight. She remembers the smell of sex and sandalwood that emitted from her lover's skin every time she touched her.   
  
She remembers their kisses and their whispered words, and she remembers the feel of her lover's tongue on her sex, her fingers in her lover's hair.   
  
The whispered, I love you's.   
  
And the, I need you's.   
  
The, Don't leave me's.   
  
Words swallowed up in the touch of their skin, whispered against each other's necks and breasts and hands and legs.   
  
'Your skin smells lovely like sandalwood   
  
Your hair falls soft like animal's   
  
I try to keep cool - but everyone likes you'   
  
What she remembers is the little things.   
  
Like the dolls eye crystal that she gave to her -- it's still on top of the wooden dresser. She remembers the way she blushes when she has to speak in front of others, her stutter and the nervous drop of her lover's head.   
  
She remembers the first time she introduced her lover to her friends. She remembers the charge of the spells they did together. The charge that shot through them any time they touched. She remembers words and glances, smiles and laughter, kisses and tears.   
  
She remembers blood.   
  
She remembers spilt candle wax on the carpet and the hole in the shirt and the sound of the gun in the background.   
  
She remembers the sound of a body hitting the floor.   
  
She remembers the words, Your shirt ...   
  
The stain on the pale white carpet. The sirens, the way her eyes darkened, the way her hand felt looser and colder, and she remembers her lover's stillness.   
  
'Oh I want to kiss the back of your neck   
  
The top of your spine where your hair hits   
  
You gnaw on your fingertips and fall to sleep   
  
I tuck you to sleep'   
  
Willow sits on the bed and she watches as the golden rays of the sun go down, their light pale through the off white blinds. For a moment she is reminded of the color of Tara's hair. Hair that tickled her skin at the base of her throat and fanned out on the white pillows.   
  
So pure.   
  
She thinks of snowflakes. For a moment, she convinces herself that Tara was made of snowflakes, a billion melting particles of ice. And she tells herself that her lover isn't really gone, she just melted under the red summer sun, but she'll be back when winter falls.   
  
And then she looks at the empty spot beside her on the bed, and she's smells the scent of sandalwood that used to cling so desperately to Tara's skin and she remembers that snowflakes don't smell like that. They smell like water. Like shed tears.   
  
Snowflakes are cold and delicate and fade away so fast at the first touch of a human hand or tongue.   
  
She's confused now so she turns her thoughts away and focuses not on the pristine white bed sheets or the slightly pink area of the carpet where her lover's blood had trickled out. She stares at the dark window, covered with the blinds. She doesn't open the blinds because she doesn't want to see the broken glass that is still there.   
  
'Your skin smells lovely like sandalwood   
  
Your hair falls soft like animal's   
  
And nothing else matters to you'   
  
Her voice is dead as she says, "I have to do these things, because when I stop, she's really gone."   
  
And she barely notices the mess in the Magic Box or the frightened look on Anya's face that her spell has cast. She doesn't worry that it will hurt her.   
  
She doesn't care.   
  
She's to busy drowning in memories of sunshine and snowflake lovers. A lover with pale pink lips and hazel eyes with the scent of sandalwood rising from her skin.   
  
She can feel the fat tears rolling down her face and the plop, plop as they fall on the ground of the Magic Box. The tears anger her and she speeds up her search, throwing books and papers to the ground. She hears the tinkling of broken glass and barely even pauses for the twinge of guilt that strikes in her breast.   
  
Her vision blurs and she sees Tara before her, blonde hair and comfort and love and understanding, well she'll just have to understand this.   
  
She wipes at her tears with the back of her arm.   
  
'And she can't tell me that all of the love songs have been written   
  
Because she's never been in love with you before'   
  
And then her fingers touch it and a shock of energy courses through her.   
  
Dark Magick.   
  
She pulls it out and places it on the table, heedless of Anya's soundless struggles and the vandalism around her. She places her fingers on the cover and closes her eyes. For a moment nothing happens, and then it hits her and everywhere there's bright light and she can feel the memory of Tara pulling away.   
  
She clutches at it but it's past her reacj and she feels only the briefest whisper of it by her fingertips before the magick sucks her in and all she can see and feel is blackness.   
  
Snowflakes melting in the deep, dark.   
  
She screams as it burns through her, ripping her apart inside, tearing her to pieces. Her eyes roll back as they turn from their brilliant green to black, like her hair, like her fingernails. Like her sorrow.   
  
And then she's lying on the floor and she can feel the magic pulsing through her.   
  
'In love with you before'   
  
The next thing she remembers is staring at her bloodied hands, and she can smell blood and death and fear and earth all around her. And then comes the cloying scent of charred flesh. She shudders and heaves onto the ground next to her.   
  
Blood paints her body and the sky above is purple with rage.   
  
She lies on the floor, and her breathing is strained. She can count her breaths and the seconds between each one. Her heart beat is faint. She lies there, looking up at the sky and the acid rain begins to fall.   
  
There's a hand on her shoulder and she turns to the face the eyes and nose and mouth that she can't place, but remembers, and she answers the unspoken question, "Because she's really gone. And I can't go on without her. The world shouldn't go on without her."   
  
And then the face nods and she turns back to the sky.   
  
Her heart beats grow fainter.   
  
And she remembers snowflakes. She remembers the scent of sandalwood and soft skin and the woman-lover that smells like sandalwood with her soft smile and hazel eyes.   
  
'Your hand, so hot, burns a hole in my - hand   
  
I wanted to show you' 


End file.
